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In May 2018, in collaboration with UW-IT’s Enterprise Information, Integration and Analytics (EIIA) unit, the Office of Planning and Budgeting (OPB) relaunched Public Profiles, which are now five interactive dashboards including:

All dashboards, except Degrees Production Trends (which is refreshed every August), are refreshed with new data every academic quarter after census day. The data is sourced from the University of Washington’s Enterprise Data Warehouse (EDW). The numbers presented in all dashboards have been approved by OPB and reconcile against internal institutional dashboards – UW Profiles (requires access to EDW).

These dashboards act as the University of Washington’s “Institutional Fact Book.” Anyone with the access to the internet can view these dashboards using their preferred browser. Explore the dashboards: http://opb.washington.edu/uw-profiles-information

Check back for additional dashboards and visualizations as they become available. Updates regarding these dashboards are also provided by UW-IT on their News page.

Please contact uwprofiles@uw.edu with any questions or for help using these dashboards.

OPB has posted two summaries, recapping the 2018 state legislative session, under the “Briefs” tab of the OPB website:

The 2018 Session Bill Summary lists the bills OPB tracked that were passed by the legislature. Links to veto messages are provided for bills that were partially vetoed by the Governor. Of the 775 bills that OPB tracked in the 2018 legislative session, 82 passed into law.

The 2018 Session Fiscal Note Summary lists the fiscal notes – evaluations of the fiscal impact of a bill proposal – that OPB completed on behalf of the UW (with the help of subject matter experts across the University) during the session. All fiscal notes are requested by legislative staff through the Office of Financial Management (OFM) in Olympia to guide legislative decision-making. This session, OPB responded to 145 fiscal note requests from OFM, breaking a record for the most in a legislative session.

Leadership in the state House and Senate released their compromise 2018 supplemental budget proposals earlier this week—the capital proposal came out on Tuesday evening and the operating proposal on Wednesday evening. With the release of these budgets, and with their subsequent passage by the legislature, lawmakers ended the legislative session on time, for the first time since 2014.

The compromise budgets make changes to the recently approved 2017-19 biennial capital budget, as well as the 2017-19 biennial operating budget, which was approved last June. An OPB brief comparing the compromise budgets to prior proposals from the House, Senate, and Governor is now available here.

In the coming weeks, OPB will post summaries of approved legislative proposals that were tracked by the University, as well as fiscal notes (objective estimates of a bill proposal’s fiscal impact on the University) that were completed during the 2018 session. Those will be posted on the OPB briefs page.

On Monday, leadership in the Senate released their 2018 supplemental operating and capital budget proposals. On Tuesday and Wednesday, leadership in the House followed with the release of their 2018 supplemental operating and capital budget proposals. The supplemental proposals include technical corrections and minor appropriation changes to the recently approved 2017-19 biennial capital budget, as well as the 2017-19 biennial operating budget, which was approved last June. They also build off Governor Jay Inslee’s proposals, which he released in December.

Please see this OPB brief for a detailed comparison of the supplemental budget proposals released thus far.

As a reminder, now that the House and the Senate have offered competing proposals, lawmakers will work toward negotiating and passing compromise budgets by the scheduled end of session, on March 8, 2018. Stay tuned to the OPBlog for updates during the remainder of the 2018 legislative session.

Today, the Washington state Economic and Revenue Forecast Council (ERFC) released their February revenue forecast. The projected General Fund-State (GF-S) revenue forecast for the 2017-19 biennium increased by $647 million. Projected revenue collections for the 2019-21 biennium have also increased by $671 million. According to the Governor’s Office of Financial Management (OFM), this forecast is the “largest quarterly increase for the state since before the Great Recession.”

Here is a quick summary of the total projected GF-S revenue for each biennium:

$44.213 billion for the 2017-19 biennium, 15.4% more than that of the 2015-17 biennium.

$48.253 billion for the 2019-21 biennium, 9.1% more than expected 2017-19 biennial.

The initial forecast for the 2021-23 biennium is $51.932 billion, an increase of 7.6% over that of the 2019-21 biennium

Behind the numbers:

Cumulative major General Fund-State (GF-S) revenue collections from November 11, 2017 through February 10, 2018 were $185 million (3.5%) higher than forecasted in November.

For the first time in nearly three years, Washington exports increased (0.6%) in the fourth quarter of 2017.

The forecast anticipates continued but slowing growth in employment (2.2%) and personal income (4.6%). Disposable personal income is also higher than assumed (5.0%) than November because of federal tax cuts.

We expect that the majority leadership in the House and Senate will release budget proposals early next week. Stay tuned to the OPBlog for updates!